Oil Hovers Just Below Friday Record

Supported by worries of supply disruptions in Nigeria and comments by OPEC that it saw no need to increase production, oil hovered just below a record $117 a barrel on Monday.

U.S. light crude for the delivery in May inched up 6 cents to $116.75 a barrel. It settled up $1.83 at $116.69 a barrel on Friday, hitting a record $117.

Brent Petroleum picked up 28 cents to $114.20.

OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said oil prices could rise higher still should the U.S. dollar weaken further.

Oil prices have jumped 22 percent since the start of the year largely due to a tumbling U.S. dollar, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and unrest in major oil exporter Nigeria.

A Nigerian rebel group said Friday it had sabotaged a major oil pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell and vowed to step up attacks on oil installations.

Officials at Shell, which is currently pumping 400,000 barrels per day below capacity in the OPEC nation due to sabotage and security concerns, confirmed a small amount of production had been shut in.

Workers at the port of Marseille voted on Sunday to suspend a strike against dock reforms, an official of the CGT union said on Sunday, but said a new 24 hour stoppage was planned for Wednesday.

The strike, which started on Thursday, has blocked traffic at France's biggest oil port, Fos Lavera, and kept around 20 ships at the quayside on Sunday. The Fos Lavera port supplies crude to eight refineries in southeast France that have a total capacity of about 800,000 barrels per day.

Comments from the U.S. government that it won't delay its plan to buy oil this summer for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve even if crude prices stay above $100 a barrel also provided underlying support for oil prices.

Crude oil speculators on the Nymex increased their net long positions last week, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released Friday.